“He’s all right,” Con spoke loudly. “In his primitive way.”
Danny eyed him: “I say, Con, that’s good,” he chuckled.
“He always takes American sarcasm for humor,” Con winked at Margaret.
“Have you known each other long?” Margaret asked. “Do you work together?” She was standing facing the bar, facing them, one arm crossed under her elbow, holding her glass neck-high still half full, in front of her.
“Since the beginning,” Danny said. The new drinks came. “Since Con came out here, that is. Lucky for me,” Danny glanced at Con affectionately. He held up his drink. “To victory,” he said. They drank.
Con, glancing past Margaret, saw her service officer staring at him. Meeting Con’s eyes fleetingly he turned away.
“Don’t take this Englishman too seriously,” Con smiled at Margaret. “If you do in no time at all he’ll have you out worshipping some idol.”
“I think you Americans have a sort of idol all your own,” Danny grinned. “They call it a dollar.”
“That will teach you, Con,” Margaret laughed.
“I say, I’d like to make a suggestion,” Danny said. “There is a rather fine club here and I’ve been a member for some time. As long as you have been fortunate enough to find your Margaret, Con, why don’t you let me send you over there for dinner. On me,” Danny was stirring his gin-tonic.
“Not on your life, Danny boy,” Con said. “We’re all having dinner together, aren’t we, Margaret,” Con took hold of her hand firmly.
“We insist on it, Danny.” She thought it rather strange that she really had no objection to Danny dining with them.
“But really I’d be in the way,” Danny replied. “Besides I have a friend.…”
“You’re coming with us,” Margaret interrupted firmly. Con felt the side of her thigh pressing warm against him.
“And I’ll tell you what,” she looked up at Con, her deep eyes glowed slightly. “I have the nicest friend. She’d make the loveliest partner for Danny.”
“Good idea,” Con said.
Danny touched his monocle. “Really, ah,” he paused flustered. “I’m not much with women, y’know.”
Danny was actually, genuinely embarrassed, Con saw. He had never expected to see the day that anything could perplex Danny. It amused him that it would be a woman.
“Say no more,” Con said. “It’s a deal. Go fix it, Margaret.”
“We can stop by her place when you take me to change, dear,” she said touching the back of her dark cropped hair. “I’m sure Sue, Sue Cummings, isn’t doing anything tonight.”
“But I’m not taking you to change,” Con said apologetically. He saw her bite into the red of her full lower lip. “You see, Margaret, our Colonel is to meet us here for a drink.”
“And you wouldn’t want to disappoint him,” she said a little coldly.
“If it was any other Colonel I’d say the hell with it, Margaret,” Con said seriously. “You understand.”
“Maybe I could get my friend to give me a lift,” she turned around.
“He’s gone,” Con said. “He left a few minutes ago.”
“Will it be formal?” Margaret turned to Danny.
“For the ladies, I believe,” he replied.
“We’ll meet you here?” Margaret asked Danny. He nodded, smiling.
“When?” she asked.
“At seven,” Danny glanced at Con. Con nodded approvingly, slowly, his jaw fixed in a stern meditative expression, almost solemn, as if in his mind he were a great distance away fighting a great battle.
“Sounds jolly,” Danny said. “I’ll go call for reservations.”
He drank up and left.
Margaret put down her half full drink, took out her compact and checked her makeup, humming.
“Will you take me to a cab now, dear,” she said when she finished.
They walked out of the restaurant as the orchestra played The Last Time I Saw Paris. He opened the cab door for her, closed it, then kissed her lightly through the open window just before the cab jerked away, watching the rear of the ancient Dodge evaporate down the bustling street of rickshaws, bicycles, and carriages.
He stood on the curb in the half dark of the dusk and lit a cigarette, listening to the now strange noises of the city. A beggar, his skin polluted with great knobs of carbunclish looking protuberances, accosted him. He reached into his pocket and took out a rupee and handed it to him feeling the coarse, hard, edge of a protrusion on the beggar’s thumb brush against the back of his wrist as he grabbed the money. He watched the weary, scrawny old Hindu as he ran limping down the street clutching the bill. Then Con turned and walked back upstairs into the restaurant.
CHAPTER XIII
By the time Margaret and Sue Cummings had arrived back at Firpo’s restaurant Danny and Con were well on their way. The Colonel had not shown and Danny had called the Calcutta headquarters and left a message that they had gone on to the Three Hundred Club, and would he join them there.
“De Mortimer, De Mortimer,” Sue Cummings was saying in the taxi as they drove toward the Club. “You’re royalty,” she gasped. She was richly small, and blonde, and came from Roanoke, Virginia.
“Ah. No. Not really,” Danny replied flustered. “And if I were you wouldn’t hold it against me, would you?”
“Margaret, isn’t it exciting,” Sue said.
“It’s really been an exciting day, Sue dear,” Margaret replied. She was contrastingly dark, well boned, with that Town & Tennis Club look.
They got out of the cab and went into the waiting room of the Club. The headwaiter and manager made quite a fuss over Danny, and Con saw that the girls were impressed and pleased.
Suddenly Con felt severed from the reality of being there. He lost all sense of color, as if he were in an eclipse. He had a wild fetid desire to strike out at the luxurious black velvet drapes that clung to the walls, to tongue whip these women that used war as an excuse to tea-party, or to round out their all too liberal educations.
He stepped back as the girls and Danny moved forward and the manager and Danny helped them select small bouquets of lilies of the valley. Con glared around the plush modern club distastefully. To his left there was a long bar on one side of a large low ceilinged room, upholstered half circular white booths with extremely high backs, richly comfortable, around a glossy black dance floor. There were plants along the walls and there was an indirect bluish light that gave the room a quiet dim seclusion.
To his right Con saw stairs leading upward, with much traffic on the stairs, and he presumed that there were other bars, dining rooms, and gaming rooms above. Everyone was early evening, freshly formal and Con could smell the blends of exotic, expensive perfume that rushed through the cool waiting room propelled by the air conditioning system.
“Pardon, old chap,” a voice from behind said. Con stepped lightly aside realizing that he was blocking the doorway. A short sloppy fat sinister looking man walked by him, a beautiful half caste, elegantly attired, on his arm.
“Oh, Gusto,” the feminine voice was saying.
“Kheeeee, Kheee,” the short fat man laughed wheezingly, glancing furtively at Con.
Con watched them as they walked into the main room, the slender beautiful elfinlike woman, and the short fat man, so fat that when he walked the palms of his hands faced directly to his rear.
“Let’s do the bar for a while, eh?” Danny was saying to Sue and Margaret. “Then a little later we’ll take a table.” They had verified their makeup in the hall mirror and Sue had pinned her bouquet on her left shoulder strap as Con moved forward. The manager personally escorted the ladies toward the bar, Con and Danny following.
“Maybe I’m crazy,” Con said as they moved through the crowded room. “But didn’t we come from a war recently.”
“My God, old man, don’t say it so loudly,” Danny hushed. “Do you want to upset the whole bloody civilian morale.”
“Sorry,” Con laughed sarca
stically. “I thought they had all heard about it.”
Danny touched his monocle. “Of course they know,” his good eye twinkled. “But really it is after five o’clock.”
The manager cleared a place at the crowded bar and they lined up and ordered martinis around. Danny introduced Con to the manager and told him that Con was to have his guest privileges any time Con was in town. Then the obsequious Irish steward-manager left them.
“Beachhead,” Danny said. “We’ve arrived.”
“Lafayette, we are here,” Con replied.
They had drifted into a small half circle waiting for the drinks.
“It’s quite the most fashionable place I’ve seen in town,” Sue said demurely. Her formal was yellow organdy over yellow, a perfect portico southern belle, Con thought.
“I caught you staring, Sue,” Con said. “What are you looking at Danny’s hairless head for?”
Sue blushed redly.
“Con,” Margaret said. “You’re not going to start that sort of thing tonight.”
Danny rubbed the knuckles of his clenched right fist against his shaven head as Sue watched fascinated. The bartender lined the drinks up on the bar and Margaret and Con moved forward.
The orchestra had not begun to play but a hidden loud-speaker drifted stringed gypsy music across the room. Margaret leaned forward holding her glass chin-high.
“To us,” she said softly, her full wet lower lip quivering slightly.
And as she leaned forward Con could not help looking down the narrow alleyway between her fine breasts. It stimulated him familiarly. He drank, feeling better, feeling maybe that he wasn’t the stranger to himself that he had been earlier.
Sipping his martini again he thought of her body and the pleasure it had given him. He tried to visualize himself as he had been, wondering if it had only been a hunger to love, rather than love itself; because he had always felt that a man was born to love. Perhaps, he thought, he hadn’t been able to wait.
She was resting one arm on the bar. Con put one hand over hers. “You have a nice tan,” he told her, his eyes narrowing. The goatee was neatly trimmed and shone dark in the dim light.
“It’s so good to feel your hand again.” He saw her swallow quickly, pausing.… “It’s so hard to keep a good tan here,” she said with a forgiving acceptance. “It’s so damp.”
Con slid his hand up over her wrist, glancing down. She had good firm hands with the appearance of complete muscular control. He saw that since this afternoon she had removed her nail polish.
“I detest India,” she said suddenly, a little peevishly, her lower lip welling out slightly. “Oh, it’s a marvelous experience I know,” she paused. “I should probably be grateful for the opportunity to help,” she looked at him sincerely, genuinely. “I do so want to help, Con.”
“I’m sure you’re doing a good job, Margaret.” Then he sipped his drink and set it on the bar. “No one’s job in this war is easy,” he said soothingly, removing his hand from her wrist, taking out his cigarettes. He seemed suddenly remote, staring at her, yet staring through her. And he seemed so much older, she thought, so serious, as if he had moved into a twilight, and the twilight had passed and he had remained with it. It frightened her suddenly that maybe he would always be waiting somewhere in yesterday’s twilight, or tomorrow’s.
“It’s just that India is so hot and dirty, so full of disease,” she said quickly, a sour expression flitting across her face. “I feel like this whole country is pulling the world backwards.”
“Then I would say you don’t know very much about the world, or about India either.” He said it vacantly as if his own voice was lost to him.
She could not tell whether he was serious, or chiding again.
“Then you teach me.” Her smile was all innocence.
Con was still holding the cigarette in his hand.
So, he thought, it was not only that they were separated by his sulky mood due to a change of water, or this strange surprise meeting, or by a headache due to constipation caused by too much curry, but now the Great Barrier of India was between them.
He squinted down at her with a strange knowing, slightly twisted smile she had never seen before. Then he winked and turned to the bartender: “I’ll have another. King size this time,” he said.
“Are you forgetting me,” she said putting her glass on the bar. “And king size too,” she came closer to him and he felt their thighs touch.
“Don’t you dare order another drink without us,” Danny said from the other side of Margaret. The bluish light seemed to fog up his monocle. He had rolled up the sleeves of his bush jacket and the top of his shaven head was purplish in the odd light.
“Not for me,” Sue giggled. “At least not king size. I’m not used to much. They go to my head too quick,” she pointed to her light blonde head, smiling saucily.
“Margaret,” Sue said in a new voice. “Would you care to come with with me. I’m excusing myself for a moment.”
“Certainly, Sue dear,” Margaret said.
They left and Con moved down the bar next to Danny.
“I hope you’re not bored, Danny,” Con said. “I’m afraid that little Sue is rather flighty.”
“Really, I’m enjoying myself,” Danny smiled. “She’s rather a nice type. At least she says the first thing that comes into her mind, rather than ruining it by trying to think of something more clever to say.”
“Well, I’m glad you like her,” Con said. “I’ll be sure and tell her before the evening’s over that your morale is terribly low you’ve been out so long. And that you never receive any mail,” Con looked away. “I’ll see that she writes you every week.”
“I say, if you keep this up I’ll have to get pissed you know,” Danny touched his monocle. “The fact that I am slightly pissed is probably why I’m getting on so well. I’m terribly awkward with women.”
“I’m beginning to feel mine,” Con said. “Let’s eat soon.”
“When the ladies get back suits me.”
The King size drinks came. Danny sipped his looking around the room. “It certainly has changed here.” He had his back to the bar both elbows on it. “I mean the new faces. Lots of refugees have joined. Formerly the membership was limited to three hundred but they must have upped it.”
“It’s a nice club, Danny. I like the atmosphere,” Con said warmly looking at the large shaven, monocled, moustached head. The face that at first glance always wanted to make him laugh but never did. A face exaggerated, altered but still unable to hide its sad wiseness, its great humility, the understanding and tolerance that other faces would never have. “It’s like there never was a war here, never has been.”
Danny turned slightly. “One likes the change of atmosphere,” he spoke softly, knowingly. “You like it but it’s frightening, too.” Danny’s good eye pierced Con. “Its a change and being mere men we think we like it but we probably hate it deeply; so deeply it hasn’t touched us. Always we hate change.”
“I have felt rather odd,” Con’s forehead furrowed. “There are moments I feel like I belong here, and other moments like I had no business, no place here at all.”
“It is rather silly that people can’t be the same in different places,” Danny said absently, expressionlessly, then looked up at the ceiling.
The orchestra was in the stand. They struck a chord, then began to play God Save The King. Everyone in the room stood up.
Someday soon Con would realize that to be the same in all places was the prime test of man, Danny thought. To live alone and think for ourselves, or to live in society and think as society thought was not difficult. But to remain an entity to oneself always, no matter where, was the sure test.
No one could help Con make his stand in defiance to the group, those who hated to see him grow away. This Danny knew from his own experience. And when the young American learned to play along with them in all innocence, no longer feeling the need to fight and rebel, appearing the opposite of what h
e was, foolish rather than truly defiant, he would find there was much less resistance. No one ever bothered with fools, Danny grinned inwardly. The orchestra finished the British anthem and began to play again at once. Many couples started for the dance floor and the room hummed and buzzed with the charge of the live music.
“I say, Con, have you ever heard of a chap called Colonel Piccolo?” Danny was still looking up vacantly. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he turned to Con.
“No,” Con replied brushing his goatee with the tips of his fingers. “I can’t say that I have.”
They were facing each other squarely, their sides resting against the bar.
“Intelligence,” Danny dropped his voice. “One of those fabulous sorts. No one I know has ever seen him.”
“Piccolo,” Con repeated drinking. “That’s an odd name. British? American? Code name?”
“Probably a code name. He’s British, pulled off the most fantastic shows.”
A group of clubbers passing the bar greeted Danny casually.
“I thought for a while he was a bit of propaganda the Foreign Office leaked,” Danny spoke softly, secretively. “They do that, you know.”
“I’ve heard,” Con replied in a low voice. “They take the exploits of several top men, create a fictitious name, and leak propaganda as if one man has pulled off all the coups. Isn’t that it, Danny?”
“That’s it, exactly,” Danny said. “It makes the enemy agents wary. They rather think they’re up against a superman. And it gives England military prestige. We’ve made legends out of paper for years,” he said discreetly. “But this chap is quite the McCoy, I’m sure.”
Con was listening carefully as he stared past Danny across the room. In a large, corner booth he saw the elfinlike half-caste he had noticed in the entranceway with the short sloppy fat civilian. She was exotic, Con thought, watching her laugh as she held the undivided attention of her table.
“Well, I just thought you might have heard of this Piccolo,” Danny was saying. “He rather did me a favor once and I would like to locate him.”
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